


Temperature Fluctuations

by youreyestheyglow



Series: Christmas Fics [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Witty Banter, and a proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 19:17:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2876447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youreyestheyglow/pseuds/youreyestheyglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas in the Smith-Ackerman household</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temperature Fluctuations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiboutozetsubou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiboutozetsubou/gifts).



> For Deena ~

Waking up isn’t so much an _action_ as an _experience_.

I’m warm, so warm, and _safe_. Don’t ask me why, but whenever I wake up like this, I feel safe. Is there something I need to be saved from? Is there something I’m scared of? Fuck no. Doesn’t change the fact that I feel safe, waking up with him curled around me like I’m a body pillow, practically lying on top of me, surrounded by his skin and his heat, his breath on my scalp, his hand in mine.

I’m safe here.

I don’t particularly want to move.

So I don’t.

It’s Christmas morning, after all. Who gives a shit if I sleep in? No one. Neither of us has work. Neither of us has anything to do. We’ve gone through the hassle of visiting friends. Today is our day. Ours.

I find his hand and hold it. It’s fuckin’ enormous. Or mine’s just tiny. Or both.  I know people find it funny, sometimes, that I’m nearly a foot shorter than he is. It’s okay, though. I can still kick their asses.

Not today, though. I smile a little when I remember what Erwin said yesterday – “You’re a bouncer every other day of the year, but tomorrow’s Christmas, Levi, and we’re going to watch _Die Hard_ and spread peace and good will to the Keurig.” Because I’m going to somehow find someone to beat up on Christmas. I don’t think I could do it if I tried, honestly.

Erwin’s finger brushes my hand and he snuggles closer, somehow, pressing his whole body against mine and curling around me like he’s trying to make a Levi burrito with his body.

“Holy shit,” I mutter as the temperature rises to California summer heights.

“Mm?” Erwin grunts as he slowly wakes up. Slowly. Very slowly.

“It’s hot in here.”

He huffs and wraps his arm around my waist so he can pull me closer. “Mm, but baby, it’s cold outside.”

“Was that a Christmas pun?”

“I think,” he slurs as he nuzzles my neck.

I sigh as I stroke his arm, tracing the corded muscles there. For a CEO, he’s got damn big muscles; when I made it clear that I was a bouncer because I liked it, not because I just needed money, he stopped trying to hire me and started joining me at the gym. He was already used to self-discipline – he was a war vet who’d gotten an honorable discharge after losing his right arm, the discipline required to work out for two hours next to a bouncer who’d been doing it all his life was second nature to him. Half the reason why I started going out with him was because if I fought him, he could hold his own for a good few minutes. It’d been a long time since I’d felt like anyone could stand beside me and not look like an idiot there.

“Why’re you sighing?”

“It’s too early for puns.”

“It’s too…” He trails off for a few minutes, and I start to wonder if he fell asleep mid-sentence, but then he sighs. “It’s too early, I can’t think of another pun.”

“Praise Jesus.”

“It _is_ his birthday.”

“If that’s all it takes to make someone praise-worthy, better start praising me damn quick.”

He kisses above my ear. “You’re so gorgeous, and wonderful, and kind, and badass, and cool, and –“

“Christ, we get the picture,” I grumble. He just laughs at me. “Such a softie.”

“Yup, that’s me,” he says cheerfully. He must be really friggin happy to have the day off. He’s not usually this cheerful in the morning.

I lift his arm up so I can roll over to face him.

He smiles and scoops me closer. I swear I can see every individual hair in the stubble on his chin.

I push my leg between his and thread my arm around his back, pushing my face against his throat.

It’s _really_ fucking hot in here. I need a fan.

But Erwin’s rubbing my back, and his skin is soft under my fingers, and the weight of his leg on mine is the most comforting thing I can imagine. It’s not often we get to lie around like this. Even on the weekends, I’ve usually got work, or Erwin’s gotta run into the office to keep the business from collapsing, or we get woken up in the first place because Erwin’s phone is ringing and the business is collapsing.

Not today, though. Not today.

So I deal with the heat. Erwin hums “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and I don’t even tell him to shut up. Even when he starts singing it and swaps “Rudolph” for “Levi” and begins bastardizing the lyrics.

“Levi the short-ass bouncer, had a very short body, and if you ever saw it, you would even say it shrunk. All of the other bouncers, used to laugh and call him names… they never let poor Levi, join in any bouncer games. Then one foggy New Year’s Eve, the manager came to say: Levi with your self so short, won’t you kick some asshole’s ass for me? Then how the bouncers loved him, and they shouted out in glee: Levi the short-ass bouncer, you’ll go down in history!”

I can feel him shaking with laughter as he finishes.

I debate the pros and cons of knocking him out and letting him spend Christmas with a headache, if only for the transgression of replacing “Santa” with “the manager” when “Santa” is only two syllables and “the manager” is very clearly four – but no, his skull is really hard and I’d probably hurt my hand.

He plants a kiss on my hair. “Want pancakes?”

“Do we have any sausage left?”

“Yeah.”

“Then sure.”

He lifts his leg off mine and rolls out and I’m _free_ of the oppressive heat and blankets. Probably should’ve taken off the blankets before now, but whatever. Regardless, I’m now sweaty and out of the protection of the blankets and it’s fucking _cold_ out here. “Erwin, get back here,” I mutter as I stump towards the bathroom. “I need a heater.”

“Did you say something?” He yells from the kitchen.

“Nope,” I yell back.

“Oh, ok, I’m just hearing things.”

“Maybe you should get that checked out.”

“Yeah, I’ll just call up a therapist on Christmas.”

“Jewish therapists are a thing.”

“Good point, I’ll go find one real quick.”

“Don’t go today, though. Too much traffic.”

“Spending Christmas in a traffic jam on I-195 is a wet dream of mine, didn’t I ever tell you that?”

“No, but it explains a lot. Here I thought I was sweating buckets in bed, but nope, it was just you dreaming about traffic and shooting some liquid semen everywhere. Might wanna get that checked out, it’s nowhere _near_ the right consistency.”

“You weren’t sweating _buckets_. Maybe cups, but not buckets.”

 “But if I was sweating enough to fill a bunch of cups, isn’t that enough to fill a couple buckets?”

“Why not a couple cups and a bunch of buckets? You just missed the perfect chance for some alliteration.”

“Because ‘a couple’ is generally assumed to be two, whereas ‘a bunch’ is more than three. So two cups couldn’t fill more than three buckets, and – why are we even having this discussion, I’m trying to shower!”

He laughs and I shut the bathroom door before he can drag me into another pointless conversation.

The water is hot enough to make up for the cold outside, but not hot enough to make me sweat. I should just stay in here. It’s _nice_ in here.

Then again, Erwin’s making eggs.

Warmth or food?

Warmth wins out. I stand in the shower for a full five minutes after all the conditioner washes out of my hair before my stomach starts making weird noises.

The air outside the shower is cold, and I wrap a towel around my waist and seriously consider just using all the towels to bundle myself up, but I make the _stupid_ mistake of stepping out of the bathroom in only one towel. If the bathroom was cold, the bedroom is fucking _frigid_. I think I can feel my dick retreating into my body.

Erwin is waiting for me in the room, holding a recently unwrapped present in his hand. I know it was recently wrapped because the wrapping is on the floor at his feet.

He grimaces at me. “Thought I had it. Turned out I was wrong.” He holds the dark blue mound out to me. “Was supposed to be a Christmas present, but since you were mumbling about being cold, I thought you might want it sooner rather than later.”

“Anything that stops me from being cold is fine by me,” I mumble as I grab the wrapping paper off the floor. He looks at me. “I’m short and closer to the ground than you are. Makes more sense for me to get it than you.” I take the blue lump out of his hand and shake it out – fleece-lined sweatshirt.

And it’s soft and doesn’t smell like a department store so Erwin probably washed it, he waited til one of the nights I worked late and freaking washed it before he wrapped it so I could wear it, fuck me I love him.

I don’t even bother with a shirt. I just put it on and zip the thing up, although it’s a little awkward, considering I’m still trying to hold my towel up.

It’s _glorious_.

I tug him down for a kiss. “I love it.”

He grins the special grin, the one that means I’m smiling, and for once I don’t try to hide it. It’s Christmas.

He bends down to kiss me again, tongue slipping between my lips, and for a few minutes I get lost in him, in his hand on my cheek and his tongue in my mouth and his body pressed up against mine through my warm-ass sweatshirt.

And then my legs start sprouting icicles and I have to let go so I can put on some pants, scrambling into a pair of sweats like my life is on the line. Which it might be, actually. I could totally get hypothermia without pants on.

Erwin holds out his hand. “Breakfast?”

“Breakfast.”

The sausage is kinda cold, the eggs are very cold, but my sweatshirt is warm and Erwin’s gaze is hot and I don’t really give a shit if the food isn’t up to my temperature standards. It’s my fault, anyway, for taking such a long shower.

“Gift exchange?” He suggests as I clean up the plates.

“Yeah. Probably could’ve done it earlier, really. Should’ve opened yours at the same time.” Our tradition dictates that we only give each other one gift a year: we live together the rest of the year as well, no point in holding stuff back just so we can give it all at once.

“I’ve got one for you. It’ll still be an exchange.”

I frown. “You already gave it to me, remember? I’m wearing it?” Is he okay? Thoughts of Alzheimer’s and brain tumors flood my mind before he says –

“No, another one. I got you two this year.”

I breathe again. He’s fine. “Why’d you get me two?”

“Well, I got you one, but I saw the sweatshirt the other day and thought it would be good to put under the tree so you wouldn’t realize there was another one.”

“I – so you didn’t want me to know you got me a present? What, is the shape too distinctive? I’d’ve known what it was if you put it under the tree a couple days ago?” I tease him. “Did you get me a bike?”

He smiles winningly up at me. “Nope.”

“There was only one present under the tree, though,” I say as I dry my hands.

“I’ve been keeping it in my closet.”

“In your closet?”

“Yeah. I’ll go get it. Go sit in the living room.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, but acquiesce. May as well.

I swipe his present on my way to my chair and wait.

He comes into the living room a minute or so later, his arm wrapped around an enormous fucking box.

“Holy shit,” I say as he sets it in front of me. I hand him his present. “Clearly I should’ve gotten you something bigger. Open it so whatever’s in here doesn’t make me look bad.”

He smiles indulgently at me as he unwraps, but it turns into a very real smile of gratitude as he finds the book on war tactics he’s been mooning over for a month but hasn’t bought because “I don’t have the time to read it so it would be a waste of money so I’ll just stare at it every time I pass a bookstore and wish I had it.” I didn’t even have to worry that he’d give in and buy it before Christmas – when he says he’s not gonna buy a thing, he doesn’t fucking buy the thing.

I thought he’d spend more time staring at the book – he’s certainly been lusting after it long enough – but he turns back to me and nods at the box. “Open it.”

I pull off the wrapping paper.

There’s a cardboard box inside.

“Ooh, cardboard, I _love_ cardboard, how’d you –”

“Just open the box, Levi,” Erwin says, rolling his eyes.

I smirk and open the box.

There’s a billion and three plastic peanuts and, inside the peanuts, another fucking cardboard box.

“What the everloving fuck is –” He raises his eyebrows at me and nods at the box again. He’s hiding a smile. Why is he hiding a smile?

I open the smaller cardboard box. Too many plastic peanuts later, I find a green box with a gold bow, which I assume isn’t actually the present, and am mostly just happy that it’s not a third cardboard box.

I open the green box.

There’s – a necklace box in it. A pretty fat necklace box, too. “Did you get me a collar?”

“Just open the box, Levi,” he repeats.

“It’d better be diamond-studded,” I mutter as I uncap the box and find –

Another box.

A smaller box.

A – ring box?

“Erwin, what –”

The chair creaks and when I look up, Erwin is reaching to take the little box out of the necklace box. He lowers himself to one knee.

I stare at him.

He opens it to show me the ring, platinum band, small diamond, small enough that I won’t feel guilty about wearing it when I punch a misbehaving bar patron in the face. It catches the Christmas tree lights and reflects them all over the room, tiny sparkles that make the room glow.

“Levi, I’ve respected you since the day I met you, and when that respect grew into love, I was absolutely shocked that you returned it. Will you surprise me again, and agree to marry me?”

I think my jaw is flapping open. Probably not a pretty sight.

“I – yeah. Yeah. Yes. Holy fuck.”

Erwin snorts, but he places the box on his knee so he can pull the ring out and gestures for me to hold out my left hand so he can slide the ring onto my ring finger. There’s a ring on my ring finger. I have a fucking diamond on my hand. I’m a bouncer with a diamond on my hand. It’s absolutely ridiculous and impractical and I’m never fucking taking it off.

I stand and wrap my arms around his neck so I can kiss him properly.

“Wanna watch _Die Hard_?” He murmurs as we pull apart.

“Yeah.”

I put the DVD in the machine and sling a blanket over Erwin and me.

I glance at the ring every few minutes, just to make sure it's still there. Probably just my imagination - or Erwin the Walking Furnace sitting next to me - but I feel warmer whenever I look at it. 

Erwin glances at me. "You okay?"

I kiss his cheek. "Never better."


End file.
